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Nevskie Shashki
Nevskie Shashki ("New Checkers" - Невские шашки) is a modern checkers variant from Russia, which was created by L. Lenisdat. It was first described in the book Igra, Igra! by N. N. Belov in 1987. It combines simplicity of rules with interesting multilateral strategies. Initial Set-up and Order of Moves The game is played on the dark squares of a special board. Each player has six pieces of his color: black, white, red and green checkers. Players then alternate moves. The first move is determined by lot. In order to prevent confusion in the sequence of moves, the four corners of the board are named after the four times of day: noch ("night" - Ночь), utro ("morning" - Утро), den ("afternoon" - День) and vecher ("evening" - Вечер). The black pieces are placed in the corner called "night" , the white pieces are in the corner called "morning", red's pieces are in the corner called "day" and green'ones are in the corner named "evening". If Red captures one of White's pieces, White can retaliate not until the next day, that is before the evening and night have passed. The moves are made only in a clockwise direction. Players should use the numbered board and move notation of checkers, in which the coordinates of all 36 cells are formed by two numbers. The Goal of the Game The object of the game is to be the last player to be able to move by capturing the pieces of the other three players. If the game is played by two teams, the object is to capture all of the pieces of the opponent team. Moves and Promotion The men move toward the opposite corner of the board (colored arrows) diagonally forwards unto an adjacent empty square (black arrows). The promotion to a damka ("lady" = дамка) is achieved, when a player's man has reached the opposite corner of the board at the end of his turn. If a player just passes through, his piece isn't promoted. A piece may start to move and capture as a damka only in the turn following promotion. A damka can move any number of squares diagonally forwards or backwards. Capturing Men capture opponents pieces that are diagonally adjacent to them by moving two consecutive steps in the same direction, jumping over the opponent's piece on the first step. Jumping can be done forward and backward. A damka jumps over and hences capture an opponent piece some distance away and may choose where to stop afterwards. Multiple opposing pieces (even owned by different players) may be captured in a single turn provided this is done by successive jumps made by a single piece. These jumps do not need to be in the same direction but may zigzag changing diagonal direction. A 180° turn, however, is not permitted. A piece that is jumped is captured and removed from the board, when the move is completed (but not during jumping). Jumping is mandatory and cannot be passed up to make a non-jumping move, nor is a player permitted to stop capturing when his piece is still able to make captures in that sequence. If a player captures with a man he doesn't have to chose the sequence that will result in the most amount of captures, but if he captures with a damka he must make the sequence, which captures most. If there is a piece in the damka's path that can be captured, the damka must capture it, provided it's the player's move. There is no choice whether to do it or not, but the player can choose where to land after the capture. Team Play The game can also be played in two teams, each one with two players, which makes the game more predictable. External Links * Rules and Example Game (Russian) Copyright Adapted from the Russian Wikipedia article, Невские шашки, http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Невские_шашки, used under the GNU Free Documentation License. Category:Modern Checkers Variants